In one of the eloquent passages quoted in The Tribune of Wednesday under
the head ‘Spirit of the Irish Press,’ we find these words:

“Domestic love, almost morbid from external suffering, prevents him (the
Irishman) from becoming a fanatic and a misanthrope, and reconciles him to
life.”1

This recalled to our mind the many touching instances known to us of such
traits among the Irish we have seen here. We have seen instances of morbidness like this. A girl sent “home,” after she was well established herself, for a
young brother of whom she was particularly fond. He came, and, shortly after,
died. She was so overcome by his loss, that she took poison and died. The great
poet of serious England says, and we believe it to be his serious thought though
laughingly said, “Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for
love.”2 Whether or no death may follow from the loss of a lover or a child, we
believe that among no people but the Irish would it upon loss of a young
brother.

Another poor woman, in the flower of her youth, denied herself, not only
every pleasure, but almost the necessaries of life, to save the sum she thought
ought to be hers before sending to Ireland for a widowed mother. Just as she
was on the point of doing so, she heard that her mother had died fifteen
months before. The keenness and persistence of her grief defy description.
With a delicacy of feeling which shewed the native poetry of the Irish mind
she dwelt, most of all, upon the thought that while she was working and
pinching and dreaming of happiness with her mother, it was, indeed, but a
dream, and that cherished parent lay still and cold in the ground. She felt fully

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